A Behavioral Approach to Economic Sociology

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  • 行動経済社会学研究の構想
  • 準共通論題報告(査読付き論文) 行動経済社会学研究の構想
  • ジュンキョウツウ ロンダイ ホウコク(サドク ツキ ロンブン) コウドウ ケイザイ シャカイガク ケンキュウ ノ コウソウ

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Traditional neoclassical economics analyzes economic outcomes assuming that agents rationally maximize their self-interests. On the other hand, economic sociology emphasizes that superstructure such as religious beliefs, or social structure such as weak ties, could well affect economic outcomes via agents’ preferences and choice sets, and warns against the negligence of social factors in traditional economics. This paper proposes a new line of economic sociology research that incorporates recent developments of cognitive psychology and neuroscience. Following Kahneman (2003, 2011), the paper distinguishes two modes of thinking and deciding: “System 1” and “System 2,” which roughly correspond to “emotion and intuition” and “reasoning.” While traditional neoclassical economics theorizes economic transactions assuming only System 2 and ignoring System 1, behavioral economics emphasizes that actual economic decisions are substantially influenced by System 1. Current mainstream behavioral economic research, however, rarely goes beyond this, and suggests that only System 2, as opposed to System 1, should be fully utilized in a rational economic decision making. This is at odds with the recent findings of neuroscience that social cognition, which mainly consists of System 1, is the basis of many socially desirable empirical facts including the one that quantity of public goods’ supply is much greater than what is predicted by traditional economic theory. The paper proposes a new sub-field of economic sociology, which can be called “behavioral economic sociology” that analyzes social factors influencing economic outcomes by way of System 1. The paper develops this idea by examining recent organizational psychology researches called “positive organizational scholarship.”

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